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Polish journalist RYSZARD KAPUSCINSKI has been
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called one of the world's great correspondents.
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He has witnessed 27 revolutions, been ordered executed at least
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four times, has reported on civil wars and social unrest in
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Latin America, Africa, the Middle East.
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In 1957, he traveled to Africa for the very first time.
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Since then he has returned on countless occasions to cover the
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social and political changes as seen through the average
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African.
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His new book, The Shadow of the Sun, is a collection of his
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experiences on that continent.
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I'm pleased to have him back at this table.
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Welcome back.
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RYSZARD KAPUSCINSKI, Author: Thank you.
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Talk about -- before we talk about this book
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-- about Africa today, the Congo.
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What's going to happen to Kabila's son?
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Well, Africa today is a very -- as it
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is always, very vast continent, but with very different
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situations.
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The Congo situation is really desperate, and very difficult.
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But the problem with the Congo is that the Congo drama is going
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for 100 years.
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Congo never was a state, a real state, in the northern term of
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the word.
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Congo was either the collection of territories, which was not
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colonized by Britain and France, so was colonized by king of
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Belgium, who treated this as his private property and as his
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private exploitation territory.
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Then there was a very short period of real administration,
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called colonial administration, Belgian colonial administration.
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And then from '60, there was a chain of coups d'etat and murder
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of Prime Minister Lumumba, first prime minister--
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Yes, Patrice Lumumba.
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Yes, and then the numerant the
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changes of presidents and so on, and there was 30 years of rule,
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of very restless rule, very corrupted rule of Mobutu.
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Right.
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And again, war, the internal war, civil war
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broken down, and -- broken out, and then still we have -- we
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have it in case of Congo, we have first international African
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internal war with the participation of seven African
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states fighting each other.
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And the country is completely disintegrated, without any real
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power.
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The different provinces are taken by different warlords, by
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different armies, foreign armies, African foreign armies.
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Yes.
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And the situation that is really
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difficult to establish the peace, and practically is a
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question of creating a state, for the first time, the creating
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a real state.
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Yes.
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And this is a process very difficult.
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The creation of state is always in history, the process very,
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very last -- very -- very -- needed a long time.
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You have, remember, to create African -- a European state, it
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took some hundreds of years.
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How about Sierra Leone?
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Sierra Leone, same situation.
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Sierra Leone belongs to the states in Africa, which you are
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-- we have like Angola, like Sudan, like--
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and like Somalia, where is practically
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[unintelligible] disintegrated, who are very weak.
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And they demonstrate the main problem of Africa, contemporary
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Africa, which is a problem of the crisis of post-colonial
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state.
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This post-colonial state, it was practically the repetition and
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continuation of the colonial administration, doesn't work in
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present circumstances, and this is the main problem of Africa.
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This colonial -- crisis of the colonials to marginalize the
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whole Africa, because there is no outside government who are
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treating Africans -- those governments seriously, because
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they are so weak.
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And the weakness of this state, it creates an effect of many
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home wars, civil wars, and [unintelligible] Africa which
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are out of any control and in hand of the warlords,
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Anarchistic, private armies, which are making the
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living out of privatization and of controlling the African
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natural resources, like diamonds, oil, and so on.
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The picture.
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Yes.
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The picture is -- picture is, I think, is a pitiful picture.
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Because?
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It is not my picture.
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Because it shows the--
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Camel, the desert--
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--[unintelligible]--
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--the need of water--
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--desert,
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[unintelligible], and solicitude of this -- he's very alone, he's
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working hard to try to get to the camel.
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Right.
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What -- tell me, in your own words, the -- you've
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had this 40-year love affair with Africa.
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Yes.
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Why, what's -- tell me -- you call it a
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marriage, even.
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Yes.
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Africa fascinate me from the very beginning, for many
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reasons.
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But in Africa, the life is -- first of all, the Africa gives
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us, in a very natural, in a very simple way, the forms which we
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have the same in Western civilization, that
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[unintelligible] and very changing.
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For example, the type of mentality.
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For example, the meat, the existence of meat in our
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mentality, the existence of fear in-- in-- in-- in-- in-- in--
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inside of us, all these things are very openly visible, very
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clear visible, in Africa.
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Those things which we are trying to hide, which are not --
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pretending not to have, not to share.
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Then you see very, very clearly in a very -- sometimes --
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sometimes in a very violent form, in Africa.
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So in a sense, it is easy to write and to show through the
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Africa our own -- our own weaknesses, our own problems,
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our own fears--
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Yes.
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--our social problem, et cetera.
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Yes.
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But why is Africa, though, different than Asia or Latin
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America in that context?
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It's because -- it's because the
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Africa have a very special history.
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The Africa has -- was a continent who never developed
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great single civilizations, except Egypt.
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But that was very, very long ago.
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Yes.
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Africa was covered by innumerable number of
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small societies, small ethnics, who are trying to survive in a
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very harsh climate.
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Africa problem is that Africa has a very difficult climate,
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very bad soil, and the lack of drinking safe water.
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So the African people, to live, to survive, have to fight
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against this odds, against these difficulties.
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And because they are unable to control nature, because they are
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unable to dominate the nature, they were using the tactic of
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migration.
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They -- if they -- if they found the problem, if they found the
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famine, you know, they found the drought, if they found the big
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epidemic, the diseases, they will not be able to change, to
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improve the situation.
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So their tactic to survive was to avoid this place and to look
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for a better place to live.
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So the whole Africa history, pre-colonial history, is a
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history of constant migration of all masses of people from east
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to -- to -- to -- to south, from north to east, this constant
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movement.
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This is -- this was a -- this was a continent covered by small
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entities who were using as a tactic of survival the escape,
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not the change.
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That's why Africa didn't produce any big, material
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[unintelligible] -- lasting civilization, because the people
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have to move in this primitive circumstances, they have to move
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-- they -- they -- they -- they need -- they don't need nothing.
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The less they have, the better it was, because it gives them
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the mobility, it gives them the possibility to -- to -- to -- to
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move.
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And that's why African civilization, traditional
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African civilization, didn't create lasting structures--
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Right.
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--like the kingdoms of India, like the
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kingdoms of China, like the kingdoms of Inca and Maya in
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Latin America.
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What would you want this -- is this is a -- how
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do you describe this book?
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Is it literature, or is it a travelogue, is it -- is it
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journalism?
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Is it what?
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This is literary reportage.
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Reportage.
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Yes, it's [unintelligible]--
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Literary, literary.
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Literary reportage. [unintelligible] it is--
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Which is -- what does that
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-- define literary reportage.
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Literary reportage is -- has been created
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in the United States by American journalists and writers--
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Like?
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Like Norman Mailer, like Tom Wolfe, like
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Truman Capote, in the '60s.
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Yes.
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And so it is bringing journal --
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And the--
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it is bringing literary quality to reporting.
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Exactly.
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You take a real facts--
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Storytelling, yes.
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--the real persons--
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Right.
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--but you are using the tools, the
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techniques, achievements, of fiction literature.
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Of the novelist.
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Of the novelist.
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Because the reality is so rich and so colorful that you are
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unable, using purely journalistic language, which is
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usually very poor and very shallow, you are unable to
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describe the richness and the variety of the situations and of
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the world.
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So you are writing about the real facts, you -- you -- you --
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you have to use those techniques of -- of -- of -- of great
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novelists who are -- who are invented the way of describing
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the colors, the smells, the landscape, the faces.
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And all these things, human being, human psychology, and all
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this -- all this sort of thing.
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That's what inventing in the United States in '60s.
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It was called the new journalism.
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And the form, the genre, new journalists are using, it is
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exactly literary reportage.
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You say that Africa is eternally biding.
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Yes.
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Meaning?
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For me, it was some experience which is
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very important for our life and who -- who -- who -- who is in
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me.
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But I'm not only doing this with Africa only, because my field is
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the whole so-called third world.
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Third world.
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So I was living--
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Third world.
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--for many years in Latin America, in Asia,
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and I am writing also about these other continents.
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You developed this instinct to spend time with
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average personages because you found them, their stories, more
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compelling, more what?
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I think that describing the people of
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other cultures and make understanding them, it's not to
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see those others through the eyes and through the -- through
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the life of the big politicians.
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Yes.
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But through the eyes of average man of this
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culture, the -- which is this man who creates the society and
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who creates a culture and who creates the life.
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Those presidents are coming and going, and those ministers and
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coming and going, systems are changing, relations, political
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relations, are changing.
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But those people are staying.
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They are for many centuries there, the generation which are
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keeping their habits, their way of understanding, of
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understanding the world, the religion, that is this long
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[unintelligible] was saying.
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This is -- this is -- this is what is eternity in -- in -- in
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-- in -- in -- in the culture of -- of -- of human societies.
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The Shadow of the Sun, RYSZARD KAPUSCINSKI.
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Thank you for coming.
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Thank you.
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Pleasure to see you again.
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Thank you very much.
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Thank you for joining us.
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Pleasure to see you again.